Business - Written Monday, August 11, 2008 by Don Tapscott - 3 Comments

Olympic medals reflect economic clout

It’s still early in the Games, but already one can see Asia — China and South Korea in particular — racking up an impressive number of medals, reflecting their growing economic clout.  Of the top ten medal-winning countries, Asia currently scores 39 medals and the rest of the world 23.  Countries have often used the quest for Olympic medals to showcase their economic or political strength.  The New York Times has a great interactive world map here that relates each country’s size on the map to how many medals the country won during that year’s Games.  The map shows the medal count for all Games starting with Athens in 1896.